Blue Jays owner considers selling team

TORONTO — Canadian telecom company Rogers Communications Inc. is considering selling the Toronto Blue Jays in an effort to generate cash that could be used in its core business, the company’s chief financial officer said.

The Blue Jays were ranked by Forbes as the 16th-most valuable MLB team this year out of 30, worth $1.3 billion.

Rogers should be able to sell it for about that sum, said Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist with Smith College in Northampton, Mass.. The team is in a large, wealthy city with a strong fan base, Zimbalist.

The Blue Jays were founded in 1977 and became back-to-back World Series champions in 1992 and 1993. Rogers, which operates cable TV and telecom service in Canada, bought 80 percent of the Jays in 2000 and the remaining 20 percent in 2004, as part of a strategy to obtain broadcasting rights for what is Canada’s only remaining MLB team.